Roman (14 page)

“Aren't you going to eat it?” Roman asked. “You earned it.”

Isra could barely force herself to swallow. “No. I don't want it. You may have it if you wish it, my lord.” She lay the fruit down on the seat between them, fighting the urge to wipe her hand on her skirt. “I would prefer to lie down now.”

Roman turned to look at her, a frown across his usually open, handsome face. “Are you unwell?”

Isra shook her head but dropped her eyes. “Only quite tired, my lord.”

“Of course,” he said. “Take your rest.”

She needed no more encouragement, and a moment later she was ensconced in the anonymity of the cart bed. She curled onto her side clutching her sack of borrowed possessions, her eyes wide and dry as she stared into the dim shadows of the rocking cart. A cold, heavy stone was in her stomach now, representing the weight of her shame.

* * *

Roman kept the little donkey at an even pace as they moved through the village squatting at the crossroads. He enjoyed watching the faces of the inhabitants as the caravan lumbered along the road, how happy they were to simply watch the wagons and characters roll past, and wondered why van Groen had given the order to move through rather than stop and turn a goodly amount of coin into their pockets. But as it at last became Roman's turn to pass the fringe of buildings marking the proper end to the village, he saw the cluster of men on horseback, several of them with bows resting upon the fronts of their saddles and all of them wearing wary scowls.

The caravan was clearly unwelcome.

Roman turned his face only slightly away from the men as he passed them, attempting to hide his face and at the same time not draw attention to the fact that he was attempting to do so. But the men were more interested in admiring the different decorations on the sides and canvases of the wagons—including his own—and Roman realized in that moment that Fran's duty within the band not only made the conveyances beautiful to look at but also served as a distraction from the individuals within.

It should not surprise him that such a ruse was so well thought out. After all, van Groen and many in his band had likely been living this life for years and knew how to go about it. He was reluctant to give the man any credit at all, remembering the way he looked at Isra, but it did make him feel better about following van Groen across the continent. It was clear the man was very careful about his actions and those of the people who followed him, and the last thing he would want would be to endanger their livelihood.

And, although he truly didn't want to admit it, Roman had to give nod to the idea that he much preferred traveling through this village openly as part of a group. It was unlikely that even one of the villagers would remember his face, but had he driven through alone, many might have recalled the large blond man in the small, plain cart.

In monk's robes.

Ringing a bell as he went through.

Roman chuckled to himself. Really, being part of the caravan or traveling as a monk transporting a diseased body were two sides of a coin. In both instances, Roman and Isra were hiding in plain sight. Neither ruse could be more obvious, and Roman thought Valentine Alesander would very much approve of this turn of events.

Constantine, perhaps not as much.

Roman did wish there was a way to send word to his friends at Melk to let them know of the change in plans, but relaying a written message was too much of a risk. Besides, informing the general that things were no longer following the agreed-upon strategy would only cause him to worry needlessly until Roman returned. There was nothing any of his friends could do to help; it was up to Roman whether he succeeded or failed.

And that suited him very much.

Acceptance of the situation at last settled in his mind for the time being, he allowed his thoughts to turn to the mysterious woman sleeping in the cart just behind him. He didn't know what had upset her so suddenly and thoroughly that she had gone skittering beneath the canvas. Roman sifted through events leading up to her escape but could not identify the cause of her distress.

Perhaps she had wanted the persimmon she'd won but felt she must give it to Roman? He rejected that idea; Isra Tak'Ahn didn't seem the kind to pout or be inclined to stinginess. And besides, the fruit had been on the verge of rot. Roman had spat out the first cloying bite and then tossed the rest of the thing into the weeds.

It was as if she was an animal, once domesticated and content, who had since been abandoned to the wild and forced to survive. She'd forgotten that not every situation was a danger, every person a threat. There would be an hour, perhaps two, when she seemed as though she was at ease, and then with little outward provocation she would retreat in an elaborate defense. As if some invisible demon tormented her without warning.

The sun was sinking low in the sky, turning the gathering clouds heavenly shades of yellow and pink, when the caravan began to slow noticeably again. Soon Roman saw one of the men he had bested that morn making his way along the caravan on horseback, riding alongside each cart in turn.

The man turned his horse from the cart before Roman's and waited for him to draw near before urging his mount to walk alongside the driver's seat.

“Good day, big fellow,” the man said affably enough, although even Roman had to wince at his purpling eye and swollen, crusty nose. “How has the road treated you thus far?”

“It is well,” Roman returned and glanced at the man. “My regrets for your nose.”

But the man waved his apology away. “I've had worse. Listen, pulling off soon. The boss bartered with a farmer for his field and pond. Pull all through and round, right?”

Roman nodded. “Right.” He wasn't sure what “pull all through and round” meant, but he was certain he could figure it out.

“And get right to setting up. They'll come about within the hour, I reckon.”

“First thing,” Roman promised, not having any idea what the man had just said.

“They call me Zeus, the Greek. Good to have you with us.” Zeus turned his horse away to wait for the next wagon.

Roman adjusted in his seat and sat up taller, alert for the first signs that the caravan was leaving the road. It was only perhaps a quarter hour before he saw the wagons turning onto a rutted farm path. The rolling of their own cart dipping into the ditch must have woken Isra, for as the wheels rolled up and into the field, she emerged onto the driver's seat at his side.

He didn't think she seemed at all more rested than when she'd disappeared beneath the canvas; in fact, her eyes were swollen. Roman was too unfamiliar with the moods of the gentler sex to know if her appearance was the result of a nap or weeping.

“It is not yet night,” she observed, smoothing her hands up over her cheeks and into her hair.

“Van Groen received permission for a field and pond. Perhaps he means to take advantage of a camp where no one need fear being tossed.”

Isra shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

They didn't speak for several moments as Roman maneuvered the cart around the long pond, keeping in line. There was another of the brawny men directing the caravan, and Roman realized that the party was forming a single, enormous circle in the field. Even as he was halting the little gray donkey, people were spilling out of carts to the interior and exterior of the circle, bringing cooking apparatus and firewood to the center and setting up poles and awnings on the sides of the carts that fronted the circle.

Everyone seemed to be in a rather large hurry.

Roman looked at Isra, who looked at him.

“What are we to do?” she asked.

But he had no time to come up with a reply before the blond-haired Fran appeared near his thigh, a stack of white cloths in her hands.

“The two of you must have brought us good fortune,” she said and then offered up the material to Roman. “For
the queen
. It's not perfect, but it's all I could lay hand to. It will do for tonight.”

Roman took the things and turned to give them to Isra. A clatter sounded as something solid fell out of the folds and landed at their feet. When Roman retrieved it and held it aloft, it seemed to be some sort of woven headpiece, coated in plaster and then painted a bright yellow. He turned back to Fran.

“What are they?”

“Her costume,” Fran said with a blink. “For the show.”

“What show?” Isra interjected, leaning forward to look at the woman.

“Think you anyone at all can just join up with us for nothing, order us about, and disrupt things?” Fran snipped. “We all work. If you don't intend to keep your word, I suppose you might want to take it up with Asa.”

She glanced at Roman with something like an apology in her eyes. “The people will be along soon. This will be the first opportunity in days we've had to try to earn back some of what that beast has cost us.” Her eyes flicked to Isra for only an instant. “So she might want to hurry along with any further demands she has.” Fran turned and stalked away.

Roman felt the amateurish headpiece being pulled from his grasp, and when he looked again at Isra, she was climbing down from the cart, the pieces of her costume wadded into one hand as she lowered herself to the ground.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

She glanced up at him as she shook out her skirts. “I am taking it up with Asa.” Then she began walking around the little gray donkey.

Roman stood in the seat, for some reason uneasy about her seeking out the dark-haired leader of the menagerie. “Isra!”

She halted and looked up at him, her tone calm and accommodating but her fine eyebrows knit together. “Yes, my lord?”

He looked at her for a moment, not at all sure what he really wanted to say.

“You don't have to do anything you don't wish to do,” he said at last, the words sounding weak even to his own ears.

Her face relaxed a bit and she gave him a smile Roman imagined would be better bestowed upon a child who'd said something clever but naïve.

“Be not troubled by it, my lord.” Her smile tightened and she turned away, disappearing around the next wagon, seeming completely prepared to take care of the thing herself.

Roman stared after her, thinking that, unfortunately, she probably was all too well familiar with doing just that.

I
sra found van Groen near the back of his paneled wagon, having a tall, elaborate collar adjusted around his neck by a boy in late adolescence. A squire of sorts he appeared, complete with an open satchel at his feet from which spilled boar's hair brushes, bits of ribbon, a rag stained with blacking.

“Ah, there she is!” van Groen said as the boy bent to the bag once more, and Asa fussed with the stiff embroidered velvet. “Why aren't you dressed? You may avail yourself of the privacy of my own wagon if it pleases you.”

“You did not tell me we would show Kahn today,” Isra said. “You did not tell me the caravan would stop.”

“I didn't tell you because I didn't know, my dear,” he said, stepping toward her and reaching out, as if to take her elbow and lead her to the back of his cart. “It's not as if we adhere to a schedule. You must dress. There is no time to—”

“He is not ready.” Isra pulled away from him and stepped back. “And neither am I.”

Van Groen stopped and seemed to force himself to take a breath, hang a smile on his face.

“I had no idea we would be granted such an opportunity,” Asa said as the squire approached from behind and began brushing at his tunic. “It is rare that we come across a land holder willing to host us so close to a village. As I'm sure you noticed, the folk were all too eager for entertainment, even if the governing officials of the town were not so hospitable. I don't know that we will have another such chance to fill our purses before Venice.”

Isra only stared at him.

Asa sighed and then looked over his shoulder. “That's fine, Gunar.” He turned back to Isra as the boy gathered his things. “If you don't wish to participate this first time, I'm certainly not going to force you.” He held up a long, pale finger, its nail white and rounded past the tip. “However, Kahn
will
be displayed tonight. If you wish to have any say about how that unfolds”—he glanced at the costume still hanging down in her right hand—“you will get dressed. Quickly,” he added, glancing past her ear for only an instant.

Isra frowned as he closed the gap between them and grasped her—albeit gently—by the very edges of her shoulders. “Don't be afraid,” he said quietly, looking into her eyes as he smiled at her. “You are a uniquely beautiful woman who has an amazing way with a magnificent creature. If all you acquiesce to is to stand near his crate and smile, it will benefit us all. And I, for one, would greatly wish to see that.”

His smile deepened for a moment and then he released her and moved away, forcing Isra to turn and follow him with her eyes.

“I'll wait for you as long as I am able,” he promised over his shoulder, and Isra saw Gunar trot to catch up with van Groen and press the long-handled whip into his hand.

Isra stood there as the sun began to sink even farther beyond the bare trees, draping the field and the circle of wagons in crisp shadows anticipatory of the coming night. She smelled woodsmoke on the air already, heard melodies being strung together as the musicians warmed to their craft. And now, emerging from the gloom in the direction of the road, came the first of the villagers—children running ahead of the adults into the barren field, being transformed into a fair by the burly men setting tall torches in the spaces between the wagons.

Asa van Groen was not going to force her to display herself, regardless of what that icy blonde had said.

Roman Berg had advised her the same.

Two men, telling Isra that she had the freedom to choose.

The only problem was, she was so used to being forced either into action by threats of violence or into disobedience by performing the opposite of what was expected of her, she had no earthly idea what to do just then.

She had given her word to van Groen that she would participate in the caravan's entertainment; she hadn't known it would be this soon.

If she did perform, she could earn coin she and Roman Berg might sore be in need of in the coming weeks.

It was all up to her.

Isra looked down at the costume in her hands, the headpiece heavy-looking, possibly resembling a gold crown if viewed from afar and if the audience perhaps squinted a bit. The white cloth material was not silk, but a very fine flax all the same.

How many times had she wished she was someone with power, with wealth enough to command a change in her situation? In her hands, she held the persona of a queen. Or an approximation of one. She could be someone else for a night. All she had to do was change her clothes.

Isra turned and looked at the paneled shelter of Asa van Groen's wagon. The door was closed, but the hasp swung away from the frame, indicating the leader had left his accommodations unlocked.

Her choice.

Isra blew out a stiff breath from between her lips and strode to the wagon.

* * *

By the time Roman unhitched the donkey, secured the wagon, and made his way from the interior of the circle to the outer, torchlit ring with Lou on his shoulder, dusk had leaked away into a clear black night. The air was perfumed with sizzling fat and burning pitch, the smell of unwashed men and the faded scent of lavender water mixed with greasy paint.

All around the perimeter of the carts—whose brightly painted canvases and wooden sides had been set alight by the torches—members of the caravan performed their tricks to groups of villagers of varying sizes. There was the juggler, tossing knives and apples over his head, the portions of fruit growing exponentially as he deftly used the blades in rotation to halve the red fruits as they spun in the air.

The woman and her dogs, smallish beasts who yapped and leaped through willow rings whilst wearing tiny vests, sat on their haunches and howled along in time to Helena's direction with her long, painted wand.

Dracus had set up his target some distance away from the caravan, and the archer amazed the crowd with his accuracy as he shot his bow from varying angles.

The fattest man Roman had ever seen in his life sat on a reinforced chair, his arse spilling over the edges of the seat while he strummed a tiny lute. He appeared to be wearing a lady's gown, and his voice was unnaturally high-pitched through his flowing beard. But it was when Roman came around the front of the cart to watch openly that he saw the scandalously deep cleavage and kohled eyes of the performer.

She caught him staring at her, and her fat, bejeweled fingers left the strings to waggle in Roman's direction.

“Hello, dear,” she sang out. There were tiny colored ribbons tied into her impressive beard, and at her side looked to be bins of crafted jewelry for sale.

Roman shook himself out of his stupor long enough to nod politely and move away, continuing his search for Isra.

Someone appeared near his elbow, and Roman looked down to find the blonde artist, Fran, walking alongside him.

“Shall I call you Hans, then?” she said by way of greeting, her eyes lingering on Lou.

“Me or the falcon?” he asked.

She smiled up at him before turning her gaze back to the activity around them as they walked along the fringe of spectators gathered before the wagons.

“It seems as though we might hail from the same part of the world, at least originally. You refuse to tell anyone your name, so I thought of one that is common to our heritage. Hans. Have I guessed correctly?”

Roman couldn't help his smile. “I'm afraid not. You are Norse?” he asked.

Fran nodded her head. “And you?”

“How did you come to be entangled with Asa van Groen's band?” he asked, sidestepping her question.

She chuckled, as if indulging his reticence. “I had need to leave my home suddenly, with only the clothes I wore in my possession. Asa's band was camped between the village and my home. I snuck onto the back of one of the wagons. Hid when they stopped.” Roman reached out to stay her as a pair of young boys ran whooping in front of them. He released her right away, although she didn't seem to notice as she turned to watch the boys pass for longer than Roman thought was necessary. Lou flapped his wings in a disgruntled fashion at being jostled.

“One of those was Nickle,” she said at last, turning back to walk with Roman again but glancing over her shoulder where the boys had run. “Ten years old in the spring. Resourceful lad. It was he who stole your belongings.”

Roman paused to look behind him, although the thief was nowhere to be seen.

“He didn't take your cart at first only because he said he doubted he could have made it back to camp without waking you,” Fran said with something of a sad smile. “Any matter, Asa didn't discover I was tagging along with the troupe for several days. Almost a week. It's a good thing he did, else I likely would have starved.”

Roman watched her from the corner of his eye. “Someone was chasing you.”

She nodded and looked up. “You can sympathize?”

Roman only shrugged.

“Yes, someone was chasing me. I killed my husband on our wedding night, apparently, although I hadn't set out to. I was only ten and six and my husband a very old man. I'm quite certain his heart merely gave out. His just reward, if you ask me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Roman asked.

Fran drew a deep, easy breath in through her nose, her eyes still taking in the crowd milling around the perimeter of the circle. “All here know my story, where I'm from. I'm not so enamored of this life as I once was, but perhaps I can somehow be of help to you in finding your way here.” She looked up at him, her face still solemn, sad. She looked as though she wanted to say something further but only shrugged and turned her gaze to the gathering.

Roman nodded, his hands behind his back as he strolled. “Thank you.”

“The woman you are with,” Fran hedged. “She is wanted, too? Is it because of you that she is, or the other way 'round?”

“Have you seen . . . her?” Roman asked, catching himself just before he let Isra's name slip.

Fran rolled her pale lips inward with a little smile, as if surrendering to the idea that Roman was not going to talk about the dark beauty traveling with him.

“No,” she said. “Not since she came from Asa's wagon.” Fran looked up at him, daring him to think what she was alluding to. “I thought that was where you were going just now—that you knew.”

“I knew she was going to find van Groen,” Roman said, trying to mask his unease. “But I've been settling our wagon and don't yet know where van Groen is camped.”

Fran raised her pale eyebrows and scanned the ground as her slippers at the end of her long legs kicked out before her. “Ah.
Our wagon
. But she is not your woman.” She looked up at him.

“We are traveling companions,” Roman said feeling the back of his neck heat. “What of you?” he asked, turning the tables on Fran's inquisition of his personal life. “Have you no mate in this band of merry performers?”

“No,” she said. “Not for a while anyway.” She gestured with her head, and Roman looked to where she'd indicated, not realizing he'd been studying her fine profile. “We've arrived just in time.”

Roman stopped a fair distance behind the sizable crowd gathered in front of a draped rectangle of curtain. More torches had been placed around this area of the camp, and the many flames lit up the ocher-colored fabric better than any gilded candelabra at a noble feast. Although he and Fran were at least ten paces behind the crowd, Roman's height gave him the advantage of seeing everything as clearly as if he was in the front row.

Suddenly, a slinky, rippling shadow flowed from the seam of the curtains, revealing a coif of dark hair that was somehow swept even higher than Roman remembered. Asa van Groen held his long arms out from his sides, the pale skin of his hands seeming to glow. All his wide white teeth showed in his broad smile, and even from such a distance, Roman fancied he could see the sparkle in the man's eyes.

“Gentle folk!” he called out in a rich, robust voice. “Yours have been favored to be the very
first
western eyes to behold the miraculous and
dan-
gerous spectacle that waits behind this curtain.
If
... you dare look upon it.” Van Groen's mesmerizing voice inflected the words in such a way that even Roman found himself leaning forward, as if he'd no idea what was behind the curtain.

He felt Fran's shoulder press into his arm. “He's very good, isn't he?”

Roman nodded.

“For it is
not
a sight for the faint of heart—or for those
easily
swept up in the tide of
romantic longing
!” Van Groen paced the width of the curtain now, his gaze flowing over the audience, his white hands waving hypnotically in time with his words. “
Thousands
of miles! From the
strangest
land ever inhabited by man! Where the people are ruled by golden
statues
and
beastly sorcerers
, and where the sand stretches away farther than the horizon at sea and a simple traveler might wander and wander . . .” Here, van Groen held his arm before him and stared past his fingertips before whispering, “
Forever
.”

He whipped around to the crowd again. “
But tonight
!” he cried, causing a good portion of the audience to startle and then laugh nervously at themselves. “Through a
highly
secret agreement with
none other
than the
king
of that very land himself, I bring to you
two
of Egypt's most prized and coveted jewels.
Kahn the Terrible
and his mistress, the
queen of the River Nile!
” Van Groen held up his arms again and stepped to the side as the curtains split in the center and spread open.